Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Tempo Tuesday - It comes around each week and this week I was not looking forward to it.

The longer the tempo miles get, the harder the workout and tonight was an especially long workout. Last week I did 2x2mi at tempo pace and this week it bumped up to 2x3mi at tempo.

All day at work my mind would slowly stray away from my work and drift to my workout. I was doubting my ability to run that fast for that long. What if my legs were too tired and I just could not hold on? What if this workout was just too hard for me? What if, what if, what if!

Why do we as runners let these thoughts control us and let us lose sight of the fact that we can run fast and run well!

By the end of the day, I did my best to push aside all the negative thoughts and headed to my running club. I warmed up alone and really thought I was going to have to run my tempo miles solo but then a friend showed up. She was tapering for a marathon but still had to do some tempo miles and although she wouldn't be with me the whole time, at least I would have a buddy.

We headed out and started the first set. My legs actually felt good and as we continued along the miles flew by. At the end of the first three miles, we stopped and recovered for three minutes before starting again.

When we started the second set, my legs still felt good but I could tell I was getting tired much faster than the first set. At about a mile into the second set, my friend veered off to do a cool down and I continued on alone. The final solo miles were hard but with about a mile left I began to count my steps. At first I was counting my steps for a minute to see what my revolutions per minute was. My coach suggested this as a technique to keep stride rate up and distract from the pain at the end of a race. After I had figured out my stride rate, I just continued to count. I counted every 20 steps then started over again. Somehow this distracted me from how tough the end of this run was and kept my pace fast.

I am so glad that this workout is done but also very proud that I did this. Sometimes having a buddy for half a workout is better than none at all.